It Has Plenty Of Fresh
Water, And Was Formerly Very Populous, Its Inhabitants Being Almost
Continually Engaged In War, Especially With The People Of Tumbez, Which Is
Twelve Leagues Distant To The South.
These people wore shirts, above which
they had a kind of woollen garments.
They went to sea in a peculiar kind
of flats or rafts, made of long planks of a light wood fixed to two other
cross planks below them to hold them together. The upper planks are always
an uneven number, usually five, but sometimes seven or nine; that in the
middle, on which the conductor of the float sits and rows, being longer
than the others, which are shorter and shorter toward the sides, and they
are covered by a species of awning to keep those who sit upon them from
the weather. Some of these floats are large enough to carry fifty men and
three horses, and are navigated both by oars and sails, in the use of
which the Indians are very expert. Sometimes, when the Spaniards have
trusted themselves on these floats, the Indian rowers have contrived to
loosen the planks, leaving the christians to perish, and saving themselves
by swimming. The Indians of that island were armed with bows and slings,
and with maces and axes of silver and copper. They had likewise spears or
lances, having heads made of gold very much alloyed; and both men and
women wore rings and other ornaments of gold, and their most ordinary
utensils were made of gold and silver.
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